Syrinx is undoubtedly among the works that are immediately associated with Debussy. The piece, which was given its first performance under the title La flûte de Pan, was composed in 1913 as incidental music to a dramatic poem by Gabriel Mourey. In the central scene Pan is playing a reed flute, which is actually the nymph Syrinx. Pan is, however, invisible to the other nymphs and to the audience. In order to reflect the staged situation, the dedicatee Louis Fleury used to play the piece behind a screen when he played it in concert. It was only published by Jobert in 1927, following Debussy’s death; its popularity has remained unsurpassed to this day.

The levels of difficulty of the music for flute published by G. Henle Publishers

The levels of difficulty of the flute music published by G. Henle Publishers

Goethe has Mephisto say this in "Faust II" and the categorizing of musical works according to their levels of difficulty is thus relative in the extreme! Relative – depending on the perspective of a teacher, a student or a performer; nevertheless using our Henle criteria we are trying to differentiate between works, grading them according to whether they are easy, medium or difficult. This classification system is intended as an orientation and a help for those trying to find a suitable work amongst all of the excellent Urtext editions. In order not to be daunted by pieces with the level of difficulty 9, perhaps we might somewhat subjectively claim that with practice Goethe's quotation may be reversed: "The task is difficult, yet difficult [may become] easy [too]!"